


ten hours, love

by Anonymous



Category: ENHYPEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Friends With Benefits, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Sunghoon Is Emotionally Constipated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:43:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28990896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "Sunghoon, right?" he asks, pushing hair back behind his ear. The action reveals two earrings—one on his earlobe, one fastened to the outer edge."Yep," Sunghoon confirms, twisting his body to turn more fully towards Jake, to give him his undiluted attention. "I'm surprised you remember," he adds, more as an afterthought.Jake leans a bit closer, places an arm on the couch behind Sunghoon for added support. "Of course, I remember everyone," Jake says. His grin widens. "And I'd never forget you."
Relationships: Park Sunghoon/Shim Jaeyoon | Jake
Comments: 3
Kudos: 60
Collections: Anonymous





	ten hours, love

There are studies that say that someone who is sleep-deprived retains the same mental capacities as being flat-out drunk. Which is to say, Sunghoon isn't to blame for the decisions he makes just hours after midterms end, after that post-exam crash that leaves him sprawled out across his bed, tired but still goddamn awake. It probably has something to do with the fact that it's 3pm, but, still. He's too lazy to walk over to the window to shut the blinds, yet too lazy to properly fall asleep.

Jay ambles into their suite after a couple of hours, during which Sunghoon had presumably dozed off. He stirs awake upon hearing the sound of his roommate walking through the common area, setting his belongings down for the day.

Sunghoon rolls over and squints to his left. The window next to his bed, showing the dark blue sky, confirms that it is now much later than 3pm.

"Sunghoon, you wanna come to Heeseung's with me?" Jay asks, peering his head in through the door. "It'll be fun, I promise."

"Is this about that party?" Sunghoon asks, sighing. He sits up in his bed, internally wincing at how sore his neck is from sleeping at an awkward angle. "You know I'm not interested in coming, I'd rather stay home and watch Studio Ghibli films or something."

"You should come," Jay urges, incredibly earnest. "Jungwon's coming, and I think Kai's going to drag Jake along, and maybe Taehyun too? Come on, you need to destress."

Sunghoon doesn't need to destress. He's fine, perfectly fine. But, still—he wouldn't mind coming along, and Jay's pout easily convinces him to attend. He always allows himself a day after midterms to relax, anyway.

There are either two ways of getting ready for a party: there's Jay's way, where he showers and runs his hand through his hair a couple times in the mirror before deciding that he looks alright, and then there's people like Kai, who insist on eyeliner and nice clothes and looking glamorous. Sunghoon takes the Jay route, shrugging on a hoodie and barely giving his appearance a thought. He does make one concession, though, fastening a hoop earring through his left earlobe.

Jay whistles upon seeing Sunghoon, presumably because of the earring. "I almost forgot you had piercings," Jay admits with a grin. "I can't remember the last time I saw you wearing them."

Sunghoon shrugs. "I always forget to put them in," he says. Something about tonight made him remember.

The party is kind of small, just as Jay promised. Everyone's dispersed between the living room and the kitchen, sitting on couches or the flimsy foldable chairs Heeseung must've brought in. The apartment is decorated with fairy lights, photos of Heeseung and his friends spread across the walls, and the result brings a coziness to Sunghoon that he hadn't expected. He's almost instantly at ease.

"Sunghoon," EJ calls from the couch, smile soft. He sounds slightly tipsy, cheeks tinged pink, but he isn't drunk yet. "Come sit here."

Sunghoon sits down next to him obediently, takes a good look around the apartment. There's Jay chatting up that guy from his Algorithms class, Heeseung pouring a drink for Beomgyu, Taehyun on the couch nearby laughing at something funny Kyungmin said. For some reason, he feels disappointed.

He shoves that feeling away, turns inwards towards EJ and tries to immerse himself in their conversation. It's a bit difficult to follow—they're talking about a book he's never read—but it's interesting enough. He nods along to whatever Geonu's talking about, slightly zoning out.

Sunghoon can't help it. He spends most of his time in his head, whether it's writing an essay or working on the latest problem set. He's thankful for people like EJ and Jay, who bring him out of his thoughts, but. Well.

He snaps out of it when a hand touches his shoulder, blinking rapidly and looking up at who bothered to shake him out of his thoughts.

"Sorry to startle you," Jake says. He's smiling, hand covering his disarming grin. "I was wondering if I could sit here?"

His eyes are winged with eyeliner; they seemed to reflect all of the light in the apartment. Sunghoon is reminded of combustion, of the formation of Magnesium Oxide, of the bright light that their lab supervisor once told them to look away from.

Sunghoon shakes his head rapidly. "No, no it's—fine," he says, eyes skittering away from Jake's face. The apartment is definitely more crowded then it had been a few minutes ago. Every chair and couch seems to be high demand real-estate; he spots Kai and a couple other making do with sitting on the floor cross-legged. He scooches closer to EJ, trying to make space on the couch. "Want to sit?"

Jake smiles, seating himself so that half of his body lies on the arm of the couch and the other half is squeezed in next to Sunghoon. It seems uncomfortable, but he doesn't voice any complaints.

"Sunghoon, right?" he asks, pushing hair back behind his ear. The action reveals two earrings—one on his earlobe, one fastened to the outer edge.

"Yep," Sunghoon confirms, twisting his body to turn more fully towards Jake, to give him his undiluted attention. "I'm surprised you remember," he adds, more as an afterthought.

Jake leans a bit closer, places an arm on the couch behind Sunghoon for added support. "Of course, I remember everyone," Jake says. His grin widens. "And I'd never forget you."

The way Jake looks at him, with unfiltered flirtatiousness, no coy trivialities, just honesty—that really has Sunghoon feeling in some kind of way. He swallows dryly, forces himself to keep eye contact with Jake. If he looks away, it means that Jake's too bright for him, that Jake makes him weak. It reminds Sunghoon of an experiment from his high school chemistry class, one of the first practical demonstrations that made him love the subject. His teacher had burned magnesium to form magnesium oxide, and the resulting combustion had form a bright light that everyone was supposed to look away from. /Don't make direct eye-contact,/ his teacher had warned the class. It'll have lasting damage.

In that way, he supposes that Jake is the same.

"Ah," Sunghoon lets out. He hopes he isn't blushing, is thankful for his ability to wrestle his face into complacent blankness.

Jake doesn't mind his lack of eloquence, more than makes up for it with his interest and eloquence. Sunghoon had remembered that Jake was good at speaking, at communicating messages, from the demonstration the LGBTQ+ club had held a couple months back, but he had forgotten just how magnetic he is.

"So what're you studying?" Jake asks. "I think I remember Kai mentioning you were a science major? Something STEM?" He tilts his head, as if looking at Sunghoon sideways will help him remember.

"Chemistry, actually," Sunghoon replies. His eyes drift towards Jake's lips, slightly chapped, then snap back up to Jake's eyes. He hopes Jake didn't notice.

"That's so cool," Jake says, eyes brightening. "I'm not really that much of a science person myself, but..." He continues to go on, talking about the things he thinks are fascinating about chemistry and posing questions to Sunghoon about his classes. Sure, Jake obviously doesn't have that much of a science background, but he's clearly smart, and his mind works decently fast. He smiles every time he understands something Sunghoon explains, and, well—

There's something about the way Jake smiles that makes Sunghoon's heart beat overly fast. He imagines the graph of it, the period becoming smaller and smaller. The period of a function is inversely related to related to frequency, that is, his heart is ready to fucking beat out of his chest. He continues to talk about different fingerprinting methods—Jake mentioned something he saw on one of those stupid crime shows, something horrendously inaccurate, and Sunghoon himself finds the chemistry involved in forensics science pretty damn cool, anyway—and Jake's nodding along, eyes bright, interested in him and what he has to say.

"D'you guys want anything to drink?" EJ asks, from Sunghoon's other side.

Sunghoon startles, turning towards EJ. It feels like being woken up from a deep sleep, being interrupted like this. Somewhere along the way, Jake's arm had found itself around Sunghoon's shoulder, Jake's side pressed into his. It feels almost too warm under EJ's benign gaze.

"I'm fine," Sunghoon says, before getting up. Jake gives him a questioning look. "I'm going to go get some, ah, fresh air," he explains hurriedly, before walking away. He needs to clear his head.

Jake finds him merely minutes later, shivering outside on Heeseung's terrace. Heeseung must be an avid gardener, Sunghoon thinks, observing the potted plants that block him from standing close to the rail. The autumn air feels crisp, bites against his skin just hard enough to distract him.

"Do you like it out here?" Jake asks. He doesn't seem to be phased by the cold at all, striding over to Sunghoon with his arms hanging loosely by his sides. "Seems kinda chilly."

Jake seems to radiate warmth like a furnace. Unconsciously, Sunghoon finds himself leaning in. This is what he meant by Jake being magnetic, by having some intangible pull over him.

"It's fine," Sunghoon says. He looks away from Jake, glances over at the various plants in front of him. In the shadows, they seem like spidery monsters, twisting and turning in the night. He shivers despite himself.

He looks back at Jake, then shifts his gaze towards the ground. He feels—confused. Sunghoon is all too familiar with lust, with wanting someone, with being attracted. He isn't an idiot; he can tell that Jake's interested as well. But there's something else there too, something unfamiliar. Sunghoon takes that feeling and shoves it all the way down. He doesn't have time for things that are unfamiliar.

"You never told me what you major in," Sunghoon notes, breaking the comfortable silence. He needs a distraction to get his mind off of this feeling.

"Oh, I'm a communications major," Jake replies, stepping closer to him. 

From there, the conversation flows as easily at it had been when they were inside.

Sunghoon isn't distracted, though; the more time he spends around Jake, the more the feeling grows in his chest. He knows what it is, has a suspicion, at least. He wishes he was more unaware of himself, sometimes.

This is where the sleep deprivation possibly kicks in. At the moment, Sunghoon is sure in his convictions. He's sure that if Jake keeps talking, he'll fall in love with him.

So he kisses Jake.

Sunghoon leans in, hand reaching to cup the side of Jake's cheek. As expected, it's warm to the touch. When their lips meet, it's both everything and nothing like he expected. It's like a fire, like the warmth Jake always brings, like a hearth glowing in a home.

He can taste the mango chapstick on Jake's mouth, faintly wonders why his lips are still slightly chapped. It's overwhelming, is what it is, the rush of sensations—the faint whistle of the autumn air around them, the rustling of the surrounding plants, the warmth of his body pressing into Jake's.

Jake is the first to break away, confusion alight in his eyes. His lips are red and shiny, gorgeous.

"I wasn't..." Jake trails off in a whisper. He's still so close, warm hands holding onto Sunghoon's sides. "This is moving a lot faster than I expected."

Sunghoon frowns. Jake, along with leading campus demonstrations, is generally well-known for sleeping around more often than the average college student. It doesn't make sense to Sunghoon.

He leans in close, answers Jake in a whisper himself. "What did you expect?"

Jake hesitates, then shakes his head again. "We can talk about this later."

Then, he bridges the distance between him and Sunghoon, pulling him in for another kiss.

Sexual attraction, for Sunghoon, is easy. He understands it on a biological level; on a psychological level, even. There's nothing different, he tries to convince himself, in the way Jake brings him home to his apartment to fuck.

There isn't, in the superficial sense. But Sunghoon can't help but notice all of the little details: the way that Jake looks at him, with wonder and awe; the sweaty flush Jake's cheeks get, so beautiful in the moonlight; and the way Jake cleans them both off, carefully and thoroughly, before coming back to his bed.

Sunghoon's exhausted, a bones-deep tiredness that renders his body a lifeless anchor.

"You can stay tonight," Jake says, leaning over him and stroking the top of his head. "You look really tired, babe."

If Sunghoon was completely awake, he'd probably tackle Jake into a chokehold and tell him to never call him babe again. By nature, Sunghoon is somewhat prickly, not the type to tolerate such affection. But he feels sleepy, barely awake, so he nuzzles into the pillow and pretends he didn't hear much of it.

Sunghoon wakes up to the sun shining brightly through his window. He's disoriented, for a second—he can't recognize where he is—before the events of last night hit him like a freight train. Sunghoon winces as he recalls. Of course he had to go and fuck Jake Shim. Of course.

In the daylight, Jake's apartment looks different. Sunghoon walks around his room, making sense of everything contained within. There's pictures of Jake with his friends—EJ and Kai, mostly, and some with Heeseung and Jay as well—and cut-outs of Jake's presence in the newspaper stuck beneath them. There's a map of the world, with a sticky note on every place Jake wants to visit. There's a soccer ball in the corner, and a jersey with SHIM labelled on the back.

Looking around, Sunghoon gets the sense that he doesn't know Jake all that well. That's typical; normal, even. He doesn't know very many people well besides Jay and Jungwon, maybe Kai as well. The weird thing is that Sunghoon wants to know Jake well. And that, that, is what scares him.

Sunghoon doesn't like new things; he doesn't have time for new things.

He stops pacing around Jake's room, stilling to listen. There's the faint sound of Jake puttering around in the kitchen, no doubt making breakfast for himself. Jake hums under his breath softly; it sounds nice, musical almost.

After a minute of listening to this, Sunghoon decides to make his way over to the kitchen, where Jake's pouring out two cups of coffee.

"Oh, Sunghoon!" Jake says, startled. His hands are screwing the cap back on the milk carton. He twists in the wrong direction for a bit, then finally realizes his mistake and screws it properly. "I almost thought you wouldn't get up, you sleep like a log."

He shrugs one shoulder in response to Jake's comment, then squints at the clock nearby. It's nearly noon.

"I didn't get that much sleep in between my finals," Sunghoon explains, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "So, ah, yeah."

"I made you some coffee," Jake offers, sliding a cup across the counter.

"Thanks," Sunghoon replies. They're directly across from each other. In his head, he imagines the tableau from the outside, the symmetry of the two of them with their mugs of coffee, regarding each other in the morning light.

Jake himself doesn't drink the coffee, merely watches as Sunghoon takes measured sips. It's good—not that he has much of a discerning palate when it comes to coffee—and slightly bitter.

"So I've been thinking," Jake begins, hand running through his hair, "that maybe we went about this the opposite way..."

"What do you mean?" Sunghoon asks bluntly, swallowing dryly.

"I'm interested in you," Jake says plainly. "Not just as a fuck, but as more." Sunghoon fights down disappointment—he had hoped that direct questions would make Jake back off, not bear his heart on his sleeve—and other warring emotions.

Sunghoon knows what he has to do. Jake's looking at him, eyes hopeful, hands resting on his cup. Mirroring Sunghoon's actions.

He breaks the tableau first, shifting his line of sight to focus on the clock. Jake's just a blurry figure in the periphery of his vision.

"I don't want to date right now," Sunghoon says. He means for it to come out with conviction, resolute. Instead, his voice mirrors his mind, sounding shaky and uncertain. "I'm not interested, I'm sorry."

"Okay," Jake says. He sounds disappointed.

When Sunghoon turns back around, he sees Jake staring down at the kitchen counter, lost in thought. There's something about the sight that twists deep into him, makes him hurt.

"But," Sunghoon adds—and this time, he doesn't have sleep-deprivation to excuse his shitty decisions—"But. I wouldn't mind doing," he gestures vaguely, "this again."

Jake nods. A realization seems to dawn upon his face. "I'll think about it," he says finally, turning to place his half-filled cup of coffee in the sink. "I'm gonna go take a shower, alright?" It’s Sunghoon’s implicit order to leave. 

Before he leaves the kitchen, he pulls Sunghoon in for a hug and pats him on the back. "Friends is fine," Jake says, sounding more understanding than Sunghoon could ever be. "Whatever you want is fine."

Then he heads over to the bathroom, leaving Sunghoon in the kitchen, wondering if he's made the right choice.


End file.
